Cryptocurrency As Real Money: Major Shift in The Scenario

Money plays an essential role in the world; after all, it dictates human life and almost every activity on this planet. Money has taken many different forms, ranging from barter to tiny precious metals in the form of coins, to numbers in a bank account.

A common tendency for most humans is to consider money as cash, however, there does not exist enough cash to represent the total money supply. Coins and dollar bills represent but a small percentage of money that is in circulation.

Over the past few years, a new form of money, not affiliated to or issued by any one country has been created. This new form of money is called “Cryptocurrency” or simply “Crypto”, with the first and most notable being Bitcoin. Since the creation of Bitcoin, many challengers have entered the space and at the time of writing, there exists more than 1320 cryptocurrencies, some actively traded across the globe.

Many people question whether cryptocurrency can replace money as we know it. The perception of legitimate money (or tender) usually includes a physical and identifiable object, with older generations relating the definition to something backed by a physical asset, namely gold. It is generally accepted that money must be accepted as a medium of exchange, a unit of account and a store of value, in addition to demonstrating characteristics of durability, portability, divisibility, uniformity, acceptability and limited supply. The reader may decide whether a cryptocurrency can include all of the above characteristics.

Not all cryptocurrencies aspire to replace money and become a generally accepted currency. In fact, although they may serve as a medium of exchange, some coins have no intention of becoming a “global currency” or the “world’s money”. For example, coins such as CrypticCoin, Monero, Dash and Zcash operate with the purpose of providing privacy and anonymity to users. Other coins serve specific functions such as their use on a gaming site, or to power transactions on a specific network.

Now, while some of you may hope to purchase a coffee from Starbucks using Bitcoin in the near term, adoption by the masses is generally a slow process. Progress has been made with many companies (Starbucks included), expressing their interest in cryptocurrencies. In the future, you will likely be able to pay with cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or CrypticCoin, as well as using interactive apps to support the instant conversion of cryptocurrency to dollars to make payments. The definition of “money” and “legal tender” is defined differently in each country, and those definitions were not written with cryptocurrency in mind. Once the definition of legal tender evolves to reflect new technologies, we will likely see a global shift in what is considered and accepted as “money”.

Below there is an amazing video that speaks to the difference between Currency and Money. This will help break down the differences further. CrypticCoin and its mass adoption ambassadors hope to speed the awareness and future adoption though education and real life use cases.